turning home
by hiyoris-scarf
Summary: a winry rockbell introspective, written for the "women made fullmetal" zine project.


The Rockbell women have always breathed smoke, her grandmother tells her, not long after her parents die, but not soon either. _We're furnaces, you and me,_ she says. _Anything that tries to go through us will need to melt._

Winry tries to swallow the lump of black metal in her throat. It sinks into her stomach, distending her insides, like the stretched belly of a snake after devouring a rabbit. That darkness will dissolve eventually, worn away by the passing years and the Resembool sunlight. But fragments of it will float in her system always, pulsing now and then with the heartbeat of loss. It will coat her lungs with iron. It will spike her blood with steel. It will surface in the blisters on her palms, toughening them like hide.

Winry learns at a young age that grief can serve her, both as her burden and as her armor.

: : :

_"You shouldn't be checking in so often. I'm fine. And even if I weren't, Den knows who to fetch if I need help."_

_"I know."_

_"Then why are you calling, child?!"_

_"Well...I thought you might appreciate an update on how _I'm_ doing."_

_"Winry. You don't think I have my own connections in Rush Valley? I've known how you were doing the moment you set foot in that wretched city."_

_Winry smiles. The anxious bite in her grandmother's voice hints that Pinako hasn't been quite as collected as she likes to profess._

_"Several people here have told me stories about you."_

_"Of course they have. I'm a legend."_

_"So you did attach automail fingers to Mrs. Wheeler's foot instead of toes."_

_"Who told you that?!"_

_"Mrs. Wheeler. And Mr. Wheeler. And Mr. Garfiel. And-"_

_"Oh, for goodness' sake. She thanked me later. Made it easier for her to pick things up."_

_Pinako's laughter crackles over the line, and Winry joins her. If they were together, sharing this evening as they have countless others in that yellow house, she would see the spidery lines around her grandmother's mouth smooth away, and Pinako would resemble the woman of so many years ago, her eyes bright as beads of mercury._

: : :

She sits on the wide windowsill of her room, one leg swinging over the shoe-beaten, dusty street outside Atelier Garfiel. The workshop is humid, ripe with male armpits whose owners are always traipsing in.

Heat rises from the ground in shimmering waves, and she pulls in a long breath. The air tastes like the burnished insides of a forge; the sun prickles in a glittering sky. Yesterday one of her clients had cracked an egg onto his metal knee to the delight of six local children. The sun above reminds Winry of the yolk: a perfect golden disc surrounded by sizzling white.

She loves it here. It isn't the same love she feels for the sweeping countryside where she was born, a slow, soft thing layered with complications of old sorrow.

The love she harbors for Rush Valley is quicksilver and octane, a rush of searing air, a keen and yellow energy that wakes in her muscles each morning and blasts wild through her dreams each night. It is a rough town that Winry loves, but it fits her roughened parts, and Rush Valley loves her back.

: : :

_"I'm happy you're settled in. Tell the others hello from me."_

_"Mei already said hi when she heard I was calling. Zampano and Jerso, too. Oh, and Ling suggested bringing you here to serve as the official court mechanic. They've apparently never had one before, but he said you could name your price."_

_Winry's grin stretches across her face. That sounds so like something Ling would suggest that she can nearly hear it in his voice._

_"And Lan Fan's thoughts?"_

_"She admires your work, but doubts you'd want to relocate so far just to take care of her arm."_

_Winry's fingers skim the pocked surface of the worktable. She knows every divot, every chip and scar, as though they're carved in her own skin._

_"I'd like to visit Xing," she admits._

_"There's a lot of murmuring about a railroad across the desert. Goodness knows how long that'll take—but then you and Granny could both come."_

_His voice has changed, even since they last saw each other. Winry presses a knuckle to her mouth, her eyes stinging._

_"Will you be happy there?"_

_"I think so."_

_"Good."_

_"...Winry?"_

_"Hm?"_

_"Thank you."_

_She chews her thumbnail, cursing her stupid throat for closing up._

_"Don't be stupid, Al. I've no idea what you mean."_

: : :

Wandering down the uneven rows, Winry's eyes skim the names. She halts in front of two close-set stones, where others have left tokens. Her eyes fall on a wilting sprig of sweet violets and yellow honeysuckle.

She sinks cross-legged to the ground between the graves, her back and knees complaining after so many long nights of work. The violets' brittle stems crumble under her fingers into fine gray dust.

Her father had adored sweet violets, Winry remembers suddenly. He had yelled in delight upon finding the first clumps of them in the spring, when winter still bared its teeth in the frigid midnights and ghosted the mornings with frost. He would gather handfuls, stuffing his nose into the velvet purple blossoms. Winry's mother laughed often and openly, but never was it filled with more delight than when her husband doubled over, possessed by a fit of uncontrollable sneezing.

A warm drop slips down her cheek, and she swipes at it viciously. Another drop splashes onto the end of her nose. Then the sky opens, unleashing a violent spring tempest that sends Winry sprinting for cover. The overhang of the groundskeeper's shed provides the closest thing to shelter and she crowds herself under it, blinking the lukewarm rain out of her eyes.

In her haste to escape the storm, she hardly notices the soft grit of the disintegrating violets in her hand. Following a vague impulse, she holds them up to her nose, inhaling their powdery, dying sweetness.

Then she sneezes.

: : :

_"Hey, you actually picked up."_

_"Don't make me regret it."_

_Winry's voice is sharp, camouflaging the way her entire body melts at hearing his voice. A voice that is safe, and healthy, and-as usual-a bit too loud._

_"Jeez. Is this a bad time?"_

_A telling pause._

_"Are you crying?"_

_"No!"_

_Her head feels like someone has packed it with wet paper. Ed chuckles ruefully._

_"You're sick."_

_"I'm fine." Her "m" s and "n" s are migrating toward "b" and "d" territory._

_"You sound awful."_

_"Right, I'm hanging up."_

_"Okay, okay! Sorry!"_

_Slowly, Winry puts her ear to the phone again. And then sneezes on it._

_"Maybe...a tiny bit sick," she admits._

_"Stop pulling all-nighters."_

_"I don't have an all-nighter to blame for this. And don't tell me what to do."_

_"Wouldn't dream of it," Ed says, half-laughing._

_The line crackles as he sighs. "You had to take care of me so much. I feel kinda guilty."_

_"You were an extremely bad-tempered patient."_

_"Well your bedside manner isn't exactly welcoming!"_

_Winry hears the veins popping in his neck and forehead. Ed communicates everything of himself through his voice. He could so easily be sitting across from her._

_She closes her eyes and imagines he is._

_"You know I didn't really mind," she says._

_A sheepish grunt from Ed's side. "Is that because you got to boss me around and tell me what to eat and when to sleep?"_

_"That... was a contributing factor."_

_"I knew it!" he crows victoriously. "You're sadistic. Sick with power."_

_"So was that your backwards way of saying, 'Winry, I'm so sorry I'm not there to nurse you back to health and make up for all the times I was a stubborn jerk'?"_

_The pause before his answer is just long enough to worry her._

_"It would take a hell of a lot more to make up for that."_

_Winry's smile evaporates, her heart twisting._

_"Ed..."_

_"What? I can't be sincere for a second?"_

_"It's not that . I…I just-"_

_His laugh interrupts her. "You don't need anyone to take care of you, Winry. You never have."_

_"It might be nice, though," she mumbles. "Once in a while."_

_"Consider the hint taken."_

_Her chest expands with relief, a warm wave lifting her on its crest._

_"Come home soon."_

_Ed hesitates. She is hard to lie to, and if he's smart, he won't try._

_"I'll hurry."_

_Winry believes him._

: : :

When her head aches and her hands are chapped, Winry walks up the hill to the big tree, where an aged swing creaks against its ropes. The valley flows away from her feet in green, rolling swells.

Her mind is busy, though her hands are not.

She thinks of her newest customer: a girl, no older than Ed when he had his surgery, her right hand missing from a farm mishap. Winry had reassured her that with automail, she could still play her fiddle.

She thinks of how Ed mentioned over breakfast how nice a house would look, there at the top of the hill where the foundation of a burned building still lies.

She thinks of Al's recent visit, when he brought silk and tea and bright, human laughter across the desert.

She thinks of how her daughter reminds her in a thousand half-painful ways of Pinako, asleep now next to her own children.

She thinks of the countless small responsibilities waiting for her at home: an electric motor to tune up, a bruise to kiss and bandage, a shipment invoice to file, a long-overdue call to Paninya, a pie crust to bake.

Winry listens to the birds talking in the branches high above her. She smiles.

Then she turns down the hill, beginning the walk back home.

* * *

**written for the _women made fullmetal_ zine - a project i was honored and overjoyed to be a part of. please check out their tumblr and twitter to see the rest of the art and writing that went into creating the zine!**


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